COLLEGE BASKETBALL 1992-93 : Bruins Find Bright Side to Team Without Stars

It would be easy to dismiss UCLA’s chances of winning a second consecutive Pacific 10 Conference basketball championship.

Gone are several key players from last season, when the Bruins were 28-5 and reached the round of eight in the NCAA tournament:

--Don MacLean, the Pac-10’s all-time scoring leader, plays for the Washington Bullets.

--Tracy Murray, UCLA’s top scorer as a junior last season, plays for the Portland Trail Blazers.

--Gerald Madkins, the Bruins’ spiritual leader and one of the nation’s top defensive guards, was one of the last players cut by the Chicago Bulls this month and signed last week with the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Hoops of the Continental Basketball Assn.

--Darrick Martin, No. 2 on UCLA’s all-time assist list, was cut recently by the CBA’s Rapid City (S.D.) Thrillers.

But gone, too, are the jealousies, resentment and back-biting that sometimes divided the Bruins in recent seasons.

“Not to put the previous teams down, but this team is more of a family,” said forward Ed O’Bannon.

Said swingman Mitchell Butler: “The guys on this team genuinely care about each other and about the goals of the team.”

Whether that will translate into a more successful season remains to be seen, but Coach Jim Harrick is sure of at least one thing: “With Tracy Murray, we would have been a very outstanding basketball team.”

Without Murray, who gave up his final season of eligibility to make himself available to the NBA, “it will be very difficult to be the kind of team we were a year ago,” Harrick said.

But the Bruins, 2-0 after defeating St. Louis and Texas El Paso last week, still should be strong enough to make a fifth consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament.

UCLA, which plays Seton Hall in the semifinals of the preseason National Invitation Tournament tonight at Madison Square Garden, might have enough talent to challenge for another conference championship:

--In Richard Petruska, a 6-foot-10, 260-pound senior transfer from Loyola Marymount, the Bruins have a physical presence in the middle for the first time in five seasons under Harrick.

“I’ve never seen a stronger player in college from the waist down,” Harrick said. “From the waist down, he’s like a redwood tree.”

Harrick has high hopes for Petruska, a native of Levice, Czechoslovakia, who averaged 16.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocked shots at Loyola two seasons ago.

“I’d like to expect 20 (points) and 15 (rebounds), but I don’t know if I can get it,” Harrick said. “I’d like him to be the nation’s leading rebounder.”

Said Petruska, adding that he has fully recovered from back surgery last March: “I think I can be close to these goals.”

Petruska averaged 16 points and eight rebounds last week.

--In Butler, senior captain and one of three returning starters for the Bruins, UCLA has a worthy replacement for Madkins in terms of leadership, not to mention one of the most versatile and gifted players in college basketball.

“Butler will be one of the top defenders in the country,” Harrick said.

Harrick is hopeful, too, that Butler can increase his scoring and improve his free-throw shooting. Butler made only 45.1% of his free throws last season.

--In Tyus Edney, a starter as a freshman during the NCAA tournament last March, the Bruins have a prototype team-first point guard for the first time since the 1988-89 season, when Pooh Richardson last played for UCLA.

“He has blazing quickness, and he sees the floor as well as anybody who has played for me,” Harrick said of Edney, who made the winning free throw in Friday night’s 73-72 victory over UTEP. “The kid made some great plays for us last year.”

--In junior guard Shon Tarver, whose average of 10.6 points last season makes him UCLA’s No. 1 returning scorer, the Bruins have an explosive point-producer who needs only to be more consistent.

“It’s time for him to be a man and develop into the type of player he wants to be, and we want him to be,” Harrick said.

--In O’Bannon, who has yet to play a full season for the Bruins since injuring his left knee during a pickup game on Oct. 9, 1990, UCLA has a potential All-American who will not be encumbered by a knee brace this season.

According to Bob Alejo, UCLA’s strength and conditioning coach, O’Bannon jumps higher than he did before he was injured.

“There are still some things he’s not doing that he was doing prior to his knee injury, but he’s playing with reckless abandon,” Butler said. “He’s getting up above the rim, shooting the ball well--just playing tough basketball.

“I think he’s back.”

O’Bannon was the Bruins’ leading scorer during a nine-game tour of Italy last summer, and he scored 19 points against UTEP.

In order to take advantage of the Bruins’ athleticism, Harrick plans to employ a 2-2-1 zone press and maintain an up-tempo attack.

Lack of depth is a potential problem. “Injury or illness would just devastate us,” Harrick said.

The Bruins’ most experienced reserve is junior center Rodney Zimmerman, who started the first 16 games last season, but was rarely used during February and March.

George Zidek, a 7-0 sophomore from Prague, Czechoslovakia, might play more than Zimmerman. Harrick said that Zidek is vastly improved from last season, when he played only 66 minutes.

UCLA’s top reserve could be Kevin Dempsey, a 6-6 freshman forward from San Jose who signed with Arizona before last season but was not admitted to school. Dempsey, who averaged 26.4 points as a high school senior, might be the Bruins’ best outside shooter, but he has been bothered by tendinitis in his right knee.

Other players on scholarship include: Mike Lanier, a 7-7 senior center who played 81 minutes last season; Ike Nwankwo, a 6-11 freshman center from Houston, and Marquis Burns, a 6-4 freshman guard from Reseda High.

Also on the roster are three walk-ons--6-5 senior Steve Elkind, 6-5 freshman Jonah Naulls and 6-5 junior David Boyle, a transfer from Cypress College who has played 10 minutes in two games. Naulls’ father, Willie, was an All-American basketball player at UCLA in 1956.

PRESEASON NIT: UCLA plays Seton Hall tonight. C7